


Baby Steps

by Rykeral



Series: The Anchor-Verse [4]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Atlantean AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:01:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21643351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rykeral/pseuds/Rykeral
Summary: Lena has a lot on her plate; between balancing her work and home life, her new royal heritage and duties, and becoming National City's newest hero, she's in need of a break. Add meddling family, a wonderful girlfriend, resurfacing feelings for her best friend, and someone out to kill her, she's determined to get one, or die trying.Sequel to Anchor Against the Siren's Song.
Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Diana (Wonder Woman)/Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Series: The Anchor-Verse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1516241
Comments: 21
Kudos: 196





	Baby Steps

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote Anchor Against the Siren's Song completely before posting. This one is not. I'm not sure how Ill post it, but as we are only about 15k in, consider this a teaser and a gift for my November absence. Keep an eye out for my next fic, The Crimson Bloom, my take on the Hanahaki Disease trope :D

“I’m sorry,” Kara blurted and Lena took a moment to wipe her mouth with a serviette.

“For what?”

There were many things Kara should be apologising for, and she had, but maybe there was something else she needed to apologise for. It wouldn’t surprise her, not after everything.

She didn’t want to believe Kara had lied about more than her super secret, but it was hard to rationalise logic with emotion. It was a hard road, and Lena was already tired of walking it.

She missed Kara, or at least she had missed the Kara she had thought she was, and she did want to be her friend again but…

Trust was like a mirror. You can fix it if its broken, but you still see the cracks in the reflection, or something of the sort. The phrase came from somewhere in her mind but she couldn’t place its origin. Maybe it was a poem or something.

“Just…. This is awkward… and its my fault.”

Lena couldn’t disagree with that and she leant forward to take a chip as she thought.

“So you’ve said,” Lena said and nibbled on the chip. She wasn’t really hungry, she had had a large breakfast with Diana, who was leaving this afternoon, but when Kara had shown up at her office with take-out and a hopeful expression well, old habits die hard.

“I’m sorry,” Kara repeated, at loss for something else to say.

She and Lena were trying, or at least trying to try, which didn’t make much sense, but you know. Tomato. Tomato, or whatever it was.

Their first attempt at coffee had gone poorly, Kara had been pulled away for an emergency. The next two times Lena had declined because she was spending time with Diana, the time after that Kara had to cancel, and then there had been the fiasco at the alien bar. Now, though, Kara had shown up determined and hopeful and Lena had let her in. She had let her in, in the way that a country let hostile diplomats into its boarders, reluctantly and with defences at the ready.

Lena wasn’t sure she was ready to let her walls down again, no matter how much she might have wanted to, and she did want to, but it was hard for her to trust.

Diana told her she had a one-strike rule, where if you betrayed her once, she cut you off completely, and maybe that wasn’t fair, but Kara had hurt her more than anyone else.

Lex had been cruel, she knew that, and logically she knew he had kept her close as a means of manipulation and control, so she knew what he was capable of. Having it shown to her, via assassination attempts, had just proven that she didn’t meant as much to him as she had thought.

Lillian had never loved her, no matter how much she may have wanted it, so she expected the manipulation and abuse, even if she didn’t want to believe it.

Kara was the first person to care about her unconditionally, without any ulterior motive. She had looked for one, at first, maybe Kara wanted to use her for a story, but when the private information she shared with Kara didn’t become public she had thought that she had finally found a good one, a true friend, what she had expected a friend would be. And for a while she had. Kara had been her rock, her anchor, the one person she had thought always had her back, even if she wasn’t doing the right thing. Kara had proven herself firmly in Lena’s corner, and the betrayal had been one Lena had never even seen coming, so brilliantly she had wormed her way into Lena’s life, rapidly taking up position in it and shining light on Lena’s life. Lena had never suspected the subterfuge, and it had cost her.

It had almost cost her everything. She was beyond thankful she had found her mothers family, because she hadn’t lied when she spoke to Kara last, she had wanted to hurt her.

Hurting people went against Lena’s nature, but she had wanted it. Wanted it badly. She wanted Kara to hurt, it was why she had cut her out, completely, and had even put Kryptonite emitters on her balcony and had L-Corp painted over with lead-based paint. All of the anti-Kryptonian devices she was capable of using, she had implemented to keep Kara out. That had been painfully ironic, and she had wondered when the other shoe was to drop, when Kara finally used what she knew to her advantage. Lena hadn’t cared then, she knew about Kara and if Kara decided to betray her again, to use the information told to her in confidence and share it with the world, well, Lena could tell the world who Kara was.

She didn’t think she actually would do it, but Kara and Alex and the DEO didn’t know that, so she had black-mail if needed. Mutually assured destruction. It was a good way to go, if it came down to it.

“You were my best friend, my only friend for a long time,” Lena settled back on the end of the couch, and it felt like there were oceans between them.

“I know,” Kara whispered, head down.

“Three _years_ , Kara. Three years.”

“I know.”

Lena took another chip. The air between them was heavy with things unsaid and things that needed to be said.

“I don’t know if I can ever trust you again,” Lena confessed, seeing she may as well get this over and done with. She had wanted Kara back in her life, but she didn’t need her. She had Vulko, Arthur, Atlanna, Diana. She didn’t need Kara or Kara’s friends.

“I’m sor-“

“Stop! Saying! That!” Lena growled, standing abruptly and Kara lurched to her feet as well, eyes wide behind her glasses.

“You can say you’re sorry a thousand times but that doesn’t make it okay!”

“Then tell me how, Lena,” Kara begged, eyes pleading. “Tell me how to fix this.”

The anger fled her.

“I don’t know if you can,” she admitted with a slight shake of the head. “You hurt me, willingly, for years.”

Kara’s brow furrowed, the crinkle present and her ears were glassy. “You said you forgave me,” she said, almost mutinously and Lena’s ire flared.

“I did, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt, that it doesn’t hurt.”

“I don’t know how to make it better,” Kara admitted to her with a helpless shrug.

Lena didn’t know either, and their silence was punctuated by Kara’s phone ringing.

Kara frowned and looked away, digging through her bag for her phone.

“Alex? What is it? I’m kinda in-what? Where? I’m on my way!”

Kara hung up and then glanced up at Lena, and it wasn’t Kara Danvers looking at her, it was Supergirl in Kara Danvers’ clothes and glasses.

“There’s a bomb at the bridge. I’ve got to go.”

Lena met her gaze a moment. At least Kara was being honest with her.

“Use the balcony. It’ll be faster,” she started to gather their food scraps.

“Right. Can I- can we talk later?”

Lena let out a sigh. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, Kara. We… can never go back to what we had.”

“No,” Kara said, and her eyes were clear without the lenses she usually covered them with. “But… maybe we could be more?”

Lena froze and Kara appeared to have caught the double meaning to her words because she went red.

“No! Wait, that wasn’t what I meant! What I meant was,” she said and lifted her hand to adjust the glasses that were in her other hand before lowering it awkwardly. “Maybe we can be even better friends now…. I’ll listen…. I promise and…. I’ll do whatever it takes.”

The faint wail of siren’s caught Lena’s hearing and she knew that Kara was delaying. It made her wonder how many other times Kara had delayed to stay with her.

“Go, Kara,” she said with defeat and Kara looked at her sadly before nodding and then she was gone, out the door in a blur Lena could just keep up with.

She continued clearing up their lunch and tried to rationalise everything to herself as she did.

James had been to see her and shown her all of the times Kara had defended her to the DEO, sometimes against Alex, J’onn, Eliza, and even James, and it was a humbling thing to experience. Kara had been on her side even when all of the evidence said she was what her Luthor name said she was, and she hadn’t really known what to do with that information.

Kara had defended her behind her back, been on her side to her face as Kara Danvers, and then challenged her as Supergirl. It was… hard. She wanted to believe and trust in Kara again but… the wounds were still there. Kara had chosen to treat her a certain way while Lena had only known half the facts, she was playing the best she could with the information she had, but Kara had held all of the cards, and had expected Lena to return the honesty and openness. It wasn’t fair, and Lena wasn’t sure she could forgive it. She had dug her way into Lena’s life and then used her, there was no two-way about it, but Sam and Diana, and even Vulko to an extent, had shown her it wasn’t so simple.

Lena had been shown some of Kara’s point of view, not enough to make it not suck, but enough for Lena to be ready to hear her out. She had, but…. Actions spoke louder than words, and while Kara had defended her, she had also treated her just like Lena had thought Supergirl would treat Lena Luthor.

Still. Kara was her friend, or she had been, and Lena didn’t have enough of them in her life to turn one away, especially one who was so eager to be in her circle again.

Diana would probably have some questions when she popped by later, but until then Lena wanted to get some work done.

Curious she turned the television on as she walked over to her desk and powered up her laptop.

A helicopter was circling above the National City Bridge. It didn’t really need another name, it was the only bridge of note in the city, not as big as the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge, but it spanned across the river. With four lanes and two massive pillars in the middle of the water, it saw hundreds of thousands of vehicles cross it every day, only today there was smoke curling up into the air from one of them.

Standing she unmuted the television, in time to hear the news anchor reporting that there was a flash of fire and now smoke was appearing at the other pillar.

A small dot was Kara, Supergirl, bracing against the weight of the bridge and Lena hesitated.

The camera angle swiftly panned across to the other pillar, to the crumbling concrete and steel, and Lena could see the steel buckling under the pressure, she could also imagine the screams of the terrified people on the bridge.

“Supergirl can only hold one,” the news anchor was saying, as Supergirl zipped from the first pillar and over to the second, only to turn around and blitz back to the first as the bridge began to buckle.

Lena started to remove her heels and pressed one of the rings on her finger, summoning her suit. It was keyed in to her biological signature, to the very ring she had just pressed. When the nanobots got here they would form into the standard shape she had set them for, and then she would be able to control them through a neuron device that would connect to her ear. She had considered wearing a head-set like Beth had, but had decided against it. When she summoned the nanobots they would come to her and form one, she could control them from there. It took a bit more time but was far more discrete. She was working on building one to go under her skin, so that she could, if necessary, be stripped of all of her belongings and still have the ability to summon her technology.

It was her next job. At its current stage the suit was rudimentary, and it probably wasn’t quite ready for what she had planned for it, but it would do the job. She would make it do the job.

Over the past few week or so she had been building even more nanobots, making a few different ones for special occasions, and had hidden caches of them all over the city. It hadn’t been difficult. Most people didn’t look on buildings, and she had been able to disguise them as lead-lined pipes, or inside vents, or even just random pieces of junk in the streets. Honestly, it had been painfully easy to accomplish, and she now had billions of them at her command.

She called them to her as she walked over to her balcony. She had been working on an interactive interface, an Artificial Intelligence, to help her run the suit, and was planning on asking one of her new off-world hires to go over her tech with her, but she didn’t know if she could trust them enough just yet. As it was, connecting to all of the databases was proving to be difficult and was a lot for her brain to process at once, she needed a background program that could access all of that information and be ready when she needed it, without being in her face the entire time.

She needed to build a network for the suit and the suit alone, and work in all of the things she needed to control it into the network. Instead she mostly relied on delayed eye movements to record her instructions, as well as the head-set.

It wasnt perfect, but like all masterpieces her tech was a work in progress.

Without a care she stood on her balcony railing and let herself fall forward. Her nano swarm was already forming around her when she left the balcony, and even if they didn’t catch her before she fell, it wasn’t like the fall would kill her. Being unafraid of death was such a rush! She knew that she could die, everything could die, but she was a lot more sturdier now, and Diana had to convince her not to take unnecessary risks, that she now had a secret identity of her own to hide.

That had been humbling. She hadn’t wanted the world to know about her, and she still didn’t, so she did understand the need for a secret identity. It had been something else to draw her closer to Kara.

She still wanted to speak to Kara about her heritage. Sam had helped, so had Diana, but Kara had been born one thing and then become something else and still was it. Sam was no longer Reign, and most of that part of her life had been a trauma, and Diana had always been the daughter of Zeus, she just didn’t know it. Kara though, Kara could understand her, and when she trusted her enough, she was willing to ask her about how she delt with who she had been, and who she had become.

But that was talk for another time.

The nano swarm caught her before she’d fallen three stories and soon she was in complete disguise as she soared over the city.

Her thrusters needed some serious work, it was one of the biggest problems she had faced when designing her suit. She needed the sensors and processing speed to calculate her own weight and then propel her through the air, it was worse if she needed to carry something. Keeping it simple had been her motto until she had built her network, so she couldn’t do anything too fancy, and she couldn’t fly as fast as Kara just yet, not without changing the suits design to look like a familiar battle-suit and she didn’t want to do that. Didn’t need to give the populace a heart-attack, nor make it obvious who Valkyrie was.

Still, soon though. Give her some time and she’d be able to keep up with Kara no problem.

Because she didn’t want to fight people, she had not outfitted her suit with any special weaponry. The weapons she had used to fight the fake Lena in the stolen Lexo-suit had been easy to make. She mostly used a staff for it, as she had the speed and strength needed to match, and she had ordered her nano-bots into the Lexo-suit to disarm it while they fought. She had easily been able to make a gun which fired bullets at her foes, or at least appeared to.

The NCPD and then the DEO had been bemused to find no trace of her appearance and then attack, to them it was as though she hadn’t even been there in the first place. The only proof she had been there was the hole in the ceiling, and in the beaten goons as well as the imposer in the stolen Lexo-Suit. They weren’t to know she was using her nanobots cleverly, giving the illusion of Valkyrie having weapons while just using the nanobots directly. No need to make it obvious.

Her power source had also been of some concern. L-Corp was already in the process of developing wireless energy, though Lena had never intended for it to be more than powering households or vehicles, the practicalities of powering something as massive as an entire nanobot suit meant the tech needed would be astronomical. It just wasn’t practical, so she had to find another source. Her brother had originally powered his own suit on Kryptonite, but Lena wanted something a little less obvious… and less destructive. She didn’t want to fight, she just wanted to help.

Improving her suit could come at another time, she already had a few ideas, and she accelerated up to the bridge, following the curve of the river, until she was hovering in the air above it.

The original Lexo-suit had sensors, not as complicated as the ones she wanted, but they would do and she had implemented them in her suit until she could replace them. It allowed her to scan the bridge, focusing in as her eye sight demanded, and she could see people fleeing the bridge on foot, abandoning their cars to run the length of it before it collapsed.

Kara was straining beneath one pillar, even as the other one crumbled next to her, and Lena could read the torment on her face. Kara couldn’t hold them both, one of them was going to fall, but if she left one for the other… she would lose time and stability and likely the bridge would collapse.

In the air opposite her she could see a few press helicopters and she ignored them in favour of soaring towards the second pillar. It wasn’t as damaged as the other one, and she quickly scanned it for more explosives. There were a few left, maybe something had happened for them to not explode with the others, but she wasn’t unhappy about that.

Ordering her nanobots to seek out the bombs and cut the wiring, she settled in the crater of the pillar, and braced herself against it. It was enough for her to hold and brace against and she could feel her muscles strain at it. While she braced the pillar she scanned it to see the weak points and considered a way to strengthen them.

There wasn’t a good way to do it, not without making it obvious she had nanobots and wasn’t some other sort of meta-human, and nanobots would be led to her soon enough. She probably should have kept BioMax a secret. No, it was best she brace the pillar for as long as she could. She would hold it as long as it held, and Supergirl would do the same.

She cast a glance to her left to see Kara, still bracing against the pillar, but she was holding it up in the air, the concrete beneath her had already crumbled, and she had to turn air-born to keep it horizontal.

A few minutes later and there was another series of bangs and Lena strained her head to see what was happening, but couldn’t see anything. But she could hear the increased screaming and shouts for help.

Lena wasn’t sure how long she held the bridge for, hearing it creak and groan and crumble around her, and as time wore on, so did the concrete under her, and she was dreading having to use her nanobots to keep herself air-born, but it was looking to be the only way.

“Dearest.”

Lena glanced up and then grinned. A very familiar figure was floating in the air before her, wind playing with her hair and with her arms at her sides.

“I see you’ve found yourself in trouble again.”

“Only a little. Give us a hand?”

Wonder Woman let out a fond sigh. “Very well. I cleared that end as I flew in. There is no one in danger there.”

She flew in next to Lena and Lena carefully handed over the pillar to her. It crunched and groaned and bits of concrete and rubble and dust fell on her suit.

“I’ll get the people off the other end of the bridge.” Lena said and shifted to the side, allowing Diana to take her place in supporting the pillar.

Diana held it steady and Lena took a moment to admire her body straining with the weight and she had a feeling Diana could feel the heat from her gaze because she rolled her eyes. “Dear One, “ she sighed and Lena let out a little laugh.

“I’m going, I’m going.” Lena ducked away, soaring up and onto the barrier. She sat there a strange bird balancing on the metal rail while she disabled her thrusters and searched for who she could help.

It instantly became clear that while the criminals had targeted the pillars, they had also targeted the floor of the bridge, making escape impossible. The gap between the bridge and the land was sizable, it would take someone with superhuman abilities to jump the gap.

Diana had already cleared the other end of the bridge, but since it would be easier for her to hold the bridge up, she and Lena had swapped places. Lena was reluctant to use her nanobots to hold a few hundred tons of weight, she didn’t know if they would be able to manage it, plus Diana could fly, like Kara, so it made more sense for her to hover and brace the bridge as Kara did.

Swiftly she ran towards the right, where there was already a sizable group of people standing close to the edge, but not too close, and crying and screaming for help. From the skid marks on the road, she could already see that a few vehicles had fallen into the river, and she knew she had to act quickly. On the other side of the bridge people were standing and watching, knowing they could do nothing, but watch and hope someone would come to their rescue.

It was a mentality Lena despised, but one she understood and, indeed, was about to promote as she slid to a halt near the end of the bridge.

Deciding to save the people she knew were still alive, the ones screaming in their cars as they dangled over the edge, she grabbed the front of bonnets and dragged the cars back up onto the road, shoving other vehicles out of the way if necessary.

Then she scanned through the river below. Already emergency vehicles were on their way, but they weren’t going to do any good for people trapped in the cars in the river. Boats were already coming to assist, perhaps to drag people from the water if they chose to jump before the bridge crumbled, but they wouldn’t be able to help the people drowning.

Thankfully there were only a few, and Lena launched herself from the bridge and into the river. It would have been cold, but Lena was Atlantean, the temperature was nothing to her, and even the weight of her suit was diminished by the presence of water.

She followed her instinct, searching the water for the cars, and was able to find a few people trapped inside them. They were her first priority.

The water was dirty, in no way helped by the rubble and twisted mass of steel and concrete from the bridge above, and it was difficult for even her to see, and she relied on all of her senses to help her.

The first car was one of those people movers, maroon, and with little white stick people on the back window. It was weird the things you noticed, she thought as she sped through the water. From what she could tell there were five people in the family, and a dog. Two boys, a girl, and the parents.

She sped through the water and down to the river bed, tearing the door off and leaning in to wrench the seatbelts open.

The passengers were already up to their heads in water, they started to scream as soon as the water started to flood in. She only had to rescue the mother and the girl. And was thankful for even the little reprieve it was.

“Hold your breath!” She demanded, thankful one of her first designs had been a voice modifier in her cowl, kind of like BatMan.

The thought made her grin before she shook her head and grabbed the mother and daughter and dragged them from their vehicles, shooting up to the rivers surface. Launching herself free of the water, and dragging the two she had rescued with her, she landed lightly on the edge of the bridge and carefully dropped her cargo before returning to the river. From the corner of her eyes she could see people already rushing forward, with a blanket taken from a car-seat, with jerseys being removed, and even a windscreen sun-visor. Twice more she acted, jumping into the river; looking for vehicles which had sunk to the bottom and had been dragged away by the current, ripping their doors off or punching out windows, and on her final return she crouched over the woman’s unconscious body.

She hadn’t heard her heartbeat when she had pulled her from her car, and she still didn’t hear it when she landed on the bridge.

A quick scan revealed she wasn’t breathing, and Lena leant over her quickly. With a thought the water that covered her suit fell from it as though it were glass, she made her nanobots press together tightly, leaving no space for the water. Water puddled on the concrete around them and Lena quickly moved the woman’s body around to make her work easier.

“Does anyone know CPR?” She demanded as she went to work, pressing down on the woman’s chest in quick succession, trying to measure her strength, but as she heard an instant crack, she wasn’t so sure. She winced behind her mask but didn’t stop. She could preform CPR for as long as it took for help to arrive, but she had to measure the needs of one against the needs of the many. She couldn’t save them all if she was concentrating on one.

An elderly man came forward, urging people aside with his walking stick. His dark features were grim and the five o’clock shadow hugging his jaw was white. “I do. I was an EMT for forty years.”

Lena nodded to him and stepped to the side, she could do more for more people while he took care of the CPR. He slowly crouched down next to the unconscious woman, setting the walking stick on the ground beside him and she caught his wince as he knelt over her but his eye glinted in determination as he began CPR.

People were milling around them, giving them a little space, but still watching. Like sheep. Some even had their phones out and she rolled her eyes. Of course.

Emergency workers were parked at the edge of the bridge, evacuating the area and setting up a cordon, but they wouldn’t be able to get across the distance without help. Lena doubted fire-engines ladders would cross the gap. Maybe two of them would, but that wasn’t going to happen. She took a moment to assess the situation and then came to a decision.

“Line up!” She demanded, mind whirling. “In lines of two. I’ll carry you across the river myself.”

While she could carry more people across in cars, pack the people in like sardines, it would take her just as long, and she wasn’t a particularly patient woman.

“What?”

“Why?”

“How can you do that?” Around her the crowd was protesting but Lena didn’t have time for it and so she acted.

Darting forward she grabbed a young man with one arm, looping it under his arms, and then picked up his companion.

Taking a few steps she launched herself up and across the distance, landing lightly on the edge of the other side of the bridge. She purposely gaged the distance so that she wasn’t jumping to her full potential. It was perhaps a little cruel, but she wasn’t about to reveal to the world exactly what she could do. Her father had taught her that, he had told her to wait to the most opportune moment to reveal information that would cast the dice in her favour. Lex had been similar in his ‘guidance’, only his teaching had involved not showing it to him until it was perfect…. And then having him point out its flaws.

Emergency workers were already running towards her, dragging stretchers and carrying equipment.

Lena dropped her cargo, not giving them a moment to right themselves, before she was jumping back across the gap.

There she snatched up a toddler, grabbed his hollering mother, and then leapt back across the gap. The boy took a while to realise what had happened, but when he did he started to squeal and demand to go ‘again!’

Lena was far more gentle when she placed him on the ground, and smiled at him, cute little grin that he had, before backing away and launching herself back to the bridge.

It took her a few goes before the people realised what she was doing, and then they were slowly forming lines, making it easier for her to grab them and then jump them back to safety.

Back and forth she went, feeling not even the slightest burn in her muscles with each action. Later she would freak out and jump around excitedly, but she was a Luthor and compartmentalisation was key. She was carrying two people at a time, jumping across the half length of a football field, and back again with _ease_.

It made her wonder what she was capable of, and she knew that she needed to test her limits in a safe environment. She needed to know what she could do, in case something like this happened again and she got herself into trouble because she thought she were capable, and she wasn’t.

It felt like forever until the bridge was clear, and she could see that the rescue helicopters, and the media helicopters, were helping to ferry people across the bridge on the other side. She wanted to sigh. Of course people had gone back the other way after Diana had cleared the other end. Stupid people.

“She’s still not breathing.”

Lena looked at the old man and the woman he was still diligently performing CPR on.

She glanced round and caught the attention of a medical helicopter, hovering above the scene and likely waiting for instruction.

“Give her to me,” she said and crouched down next to the old man. Using her eye recognition, she activated her thrusters and launched herself back into the air, soaring as fast as she dared towards the helicopter.

It was hovering and she could hear the crew scrambling to open the doors as she got closer.

The space was small, but she grabbed a hold of the handrails and braced herself, handing over the woman to the waiting medics.

“We’ve been giving her CPR since she came out of the water,” Lena shouted and they nodded, already moving her onto a bed and continuing the compressions Lena had started.

Satisfied she dropped away from the helicopter and cut off her thrusters, landing lightly next to the old man.

“Can I carry you across?” Lena enquired and held out an arm in offering as he laboured to his feet with a grimace. He gave her a pained smile, reminding her a bit of an old dog, greying around the muzzle, but still full of some play.

“Don’t mind if I do, My Lady,” he gave a little bow and Lena smiled at him, even though he couldn’t see it.

Lena was gentle with him, a bit more gentle than she had been with others, as she lifted him and made sure he kept a hold of his walking stick before she leapt across the distance. She landed lightly and released him before turning back to the bridge.

She should go and see if she could help Kara and Diana further.

She launched herself back across the distance and tore her way down the bridge.

Diana and Kara were still holding it steady and she slid down the railings to drop down near her lover, hanging from a cable like that ape-man who lived in the jungle. What was his name, Gerry? John? George?

“All right?” She asked as she hung near Diana, and Diana grinned, though she was now hovering in the air, holding the bridge steady like Supergirl was. Her biceps were flexing with the strain and Lena let her eyes roll over the exposed muscle with appreciation.

“We can’t hold it forever, Dearest,” she said pointedly, though Lena was pretty sure the two of them, Wonder Woman and Supergirl, could hold it for a few years off forever, but she got the point.

Kara would be the best one to find the materials needed to steady the bridge, but she couldn’t do that because she was holding it.

Lena released the cable and flew towards Supergirl, across the churning and dirty river below the bridge.

“Did you get everyone off safely?” Kara asked as soon as Lena flew up and it was so typical of Kara, worried about everyone.

“Yes.”

Lena flew even closer, noticing how Kara’s eyes had narrowed at her presence.

“Swap,” Lena instructed and flew right in next to Kara, preparing to brace against the bridge’s weight.

It was a bit more difficult, changing places with Kara than it had been with Diana, and she felt the strain on her suit immediately, and was aware of the immediate power drainage, even if it was at minuscule amounts.

“Argh,” she gave a little grunt as she took on the full weight and Kara hovered a moment, likely to make sure she could hold it, and then she shot off.

Lena just grit her teeth and forced her suit to hold the weight, directing more and more nanobots, and their power, to her thrusters. She wouldn’t be able to hold the pillar for long, but hopefully Kara would be back soon.

Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait long, and soon Kara was returning with a massive truck over her shoulders, full of steel poles.

She left the truck on the bridge, which shuddered with the additional weight, and came down with a few poles.

“I hope you paid for that,” Lena grunted as Kara flew around her, slamming the poles into the concrete and using her laser vison to keep them in place.

Kara gave a startled laugh, “Come out.”

Lena slowly lowered her arms, feeling the relief in her muscles instantly, and quickly flew out from under the pillar. Kara slammed a few more beams into the pillar and then hovered, Lena let her scanners run over the pillar before nodding. It was rudimentary, but it would hold for the moment, at least long enough for the city to decide what to do about it.

Kara soared up for the rest of the poles while Lena darted over to Diana. She cast a glance at her power stores and winced. She really needed to figure something else out. Her flight ability wouldn’t last her too much longer, and she wanted to be out of sight before that happened. While she could run and jump, she didn’t really want to go through the city like that, she would be easier to track that way.

She made a mental note to find blind spots in the city, even if she had to design a program to do it herself. She needed to know where she could hide if she needed to. And she really should look at some sort of reflector panels, stealth mode.

There were a lot of things on her ‘to-do’ list, and she needed to make the time to get them done.

“You missed your flight,” she commented, a glance over her sensors telling her the time.

“I was distracted,” Diana replied and Kara hovered down next to them with a few bars at the ready.

“Ready, Wonder Woman?” Kara was grinning, almost giddy in the presence of another hero, a female one, and Lena recalled that Kara idolised Diana. The thought made Lena smile.

Diana turned to Supergirl. “Of course.”

Within a few seconds, almost faster than Lena’s eye, the two heroes had slammed bars into the pillar and it looked like someone had stuffed a bunch of toothpicks into it, keeping it upright.

Lena ran her eyes over the bridge before nodding. It took her a few calculations, but she was sure the bridge would hold for the moment and said so.

The three of them hovered above it, monitoring their handiwork, and soon there was a clapping sound, rising in volume.

Lena glanced at her sensors. Time to go.

She was lifting above the people, flying slowly as she conserved her power, when Diana caught up to her.

“You don’t want to let them thank you?”

There was something odd in Diana’s tone that Lena was able to catch, but she wasn’t sure what it meant.

“They don’t need to.”

Lena slowly flew over the bridge when something caught her air and she paused to listen, Diana floating next to her.

“Miss! Excuse me, Miss!”

A figure was waving up at her and she angled down to him, landing lightly near the EMT who had helped her. He was leaning heavily on his walking stick and his face a little pale, but he was smiling.

Diana landed next to her and she caught Kara talking to some of the present authorities.

“Miss!”

“Thank you for your help,” Lena said politely to him, offering him her hand to shake and he shook it enthusiastically, hands callused and worn with age.

“No problem!” He was grinning and shaking her hand happily. “Thank you for saving us! That was incredible!”

Lena shrugged. It wasn’t all that impressive, especially when faced with Wonder Woman and Supergirl.

“Did you-erm,” the man hesitated and Lena took her hand back. “Do you know if the girl is okay?”

Lena frowned behind her mask and it took her a moment. He was talking about the woman from the car, the one who was unconscious. The one he and Lena had tried to revive.

“I do not,” she replied and looked around. Perhaps she could find out.

There were a few ambulances and Lena walked over to one, Diana her shadow. Police had already cordoned off the street and people were there waving and shouting with cameras and phones.

“Excuse me,” Lena asked as she got closer, and there were murmurs of awe and Lena was surprised to hear her name, Valkyrie, whispered among them. It was…. It made her feel warm on the inside, but she also wasn’t sure how to handle it.

“There was a woman I delivered to a helicopter earlier. Can you tell me if she is alive, or not?”

The ambulance workers shared a glance and Lena knew they were tossing up the legality and morality of telling her what she wanted to know, over her, the person who had saved her.

After a few moments one ducked into the front of the ambulance. “Just a sec.”

While they waited Diana commented on her suit, coming up behind her and standing close. “I thought you didn’t want a corset.”

Lena grunted. “The cesspool of the internet has decided I’m ‘steampunk’ whatever that is. I just liked how it looked.”

She paused a moment and then properly glanced at Diana, face hidden within her hood. “You don’t like it?” She asked innocently and Diana slowly turned to look at her and Lena smirked under her hood.

She lifted a gloved hand and slowly stroked the exposed skin at her collar pointedly.

Diana stared for a moment before rolling her eyes. “Funny.”

Lena grinned. “You love me,” she disagreed with a happy smile, adding a hint of flirtatiousness to her tone.

“You are inviting your enemies to-“ Diana halted and huffed and Lena let out a little laugh.

“Medieval cheerleader,” she said pointedly, knowing the comparison amused Diana, even if it was often said slightly cruelly by the people who weren’t fond of her.

Ideally a person would have their entire body covered in a suit, especially if they weren’t bulletproof, but still, why leave so much of your body open to attack?

Lena, at least, only had the exposed skin at her collar and neck open, and that was because she didn’t like wearing things tight around her neck.

Diana’s warm chuckle was interrupted by the return of the EMT.

“I can only tell you she’s alive, they managed to revive her before they reached the hospital.”

Lena let out a breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding. “Good. Thank you.”

She turned and gave the thumbs up sign to the old EMT and his grin was relieved as he lowered himself onto a chair he had been offered from a local café. No doubt he would be looked over, but at the moment the emergency workers were busy.

With a final glance around, she nodded to Diana. “I’ll be seeing you, Wonder Woman.”

Lena shot into the sky and her sensors informed her something was approaching. She hovered, waiting for Supergirl to come up to her.

Kara was smiling, but it wasn’t the kind of smile Lena was used to. This one was guarded, polite, anyone who was familiar with her would know immediately that it wasn’t her true smile, her open and friendly one.

“Hey! Wait!”

The two hovered in the air above the city and Lena cast a glance over her sensors and calculated the time she could spend with Kara before her power level dropped past a level she deemed unacceptable.

“Hi, um,” Kara smiled at her a little more friendly than before. “I never got to thank you for, you know, saving my life and all. So um, thanks.”

Lena nodded, remaining silent and turned as though to fly away.

“Wait!”

Lena paused again. What could Kara possibly want now?”

“The people I work with, they um, they want to talk to you.”

Of course, they did. Well, they wouldn’t be talking to Lena any time soon.

Lena fired her thrusters again and Supergirl let her fly away. She probably didn’t want to drag her to the DEO either, and it wouldn’t look good for Supergirl and Valkyrie to get into a fight in the air above the city, especially after they had just helped save people together. Lena wondered if Diana would fight on her side if it came to it, and then decided that the woman would probably knock both of their heads together and insist they spar safely before going for a drink. Still, Wonder Woman had no authority over the DEO and Lena didn’t want to get her on their radar as anything other than an ally. And Diana would take one look at their processes and history and demand they shut down. It would be best Lena keep Diana as far away from the DEO as possible.

Lena knew, now more than ever, that they would be monitoring her, so she needed to get somewhere safe and then hide who she was. She didn’t have the tech, yet, to combat the cameras and power of the DEO, but once she did, she’d be able to pop up here and there without them tracking her. Plus, she knew how to build her face modifier tech and would change her face when she emerged back into public.

She zipped towards a crowded footpath where people were waiting to cross the street. Sending out her nanobots she made them thicken and join together, hiding her from the view of any camera, and then she dropped down behind the crowd. She kept the face modifier on, and slipped in between the people as the light turned green, and she ordered her nanobots away.

Strolling casually down the street, Lena Luthor, looking like another ordinary person, vanished into the city.


End file.
